Selma's newest crime-fighter moves on four wheels, weighs 9,500 pounds, is fully armored and has a battering ram.

The Selma Police Department's new $177,000 Ballistic Armored Tactical Transport, or BATT, vehicle arrived in the city in late December and has already proved its worth in helping the Randolph Area Metro Emergency Response Team, a SWAT team unit made up of officers from 10 area police departments, capture a suspect wanted for murder.

Selma will make the vehicle available to member cities of the emergency response team that need to use it.

Selma Police Detective Jerry Grubbs, commander of the Randolph area team, said the armored vehicle allows team members to get closer to a dangerous situation.

“Tactically, it gives us a place to operate from,” Grubbs said. “A safe place that we can deploy our team a lot closer to the objective. We can make decisions in close proximity to the objective, and it's armored to give us protection while we are making those decisions.”

The BATT vehicle is equipped with armor, a rotating turret, gun ports along the side and on the back doors, four remote operated spotlights, a battering ram and an air-conditioning-and-heating system.

The vehicle is based on a Ford F-550 4x4 chassis and was outfitted by The Armored Group LLC, an international company that makes armored vehicles for the U.S. military and law enforcement and countries around the world.

Grubbs said the vehicle has the capability to hold eight to 11 SWAT team members and is large enough to transport an injured officer or civilian.

The look of the BATT vehicle itself, Grubbs said, can also be used to the SWAT team's advantage.

“There's a force presence,” Grubbs said. “We drive up in somebody's front yard with that vehicle, and they know we mean business. It's a show of force without having to use force.”

Grubbs and Selma Police Sgt. Robert Hardcastle flew to Detroit on Dec. 16 to pickup the BATT vehicle and drive it back, arriving in Selma on Dec. 18.

Two days after the vehicle arrived in Selma, it was pressed into action when SWAT team members arrested a man in Schertz who was wanted in the slaying of 25-year-old Jimmy Mosmeyer in Universal City the day before.

Authorities said the Mosmeyer was shot in the head in an apartment complex in the 400 block of East Aviation Boulevard.

By utilizing the BATT vehicle, Grubbs said the SWAT unit convinced the suspect to surrender peacefully.

“In short order, we parked the armored vehicle in his front yard and communicated to him that it was time to turn himself in,” Grubbs said. “He took a look out the window, walked out and peacefully surrendered.

“That was the first time we used it and thankfully the last time we have used it (since then),” he added.

Grubbs said SWAT team members will learn how to use the new BATT vehicle during training sessions.

“It's a matter of doing some training with the vehicle, getting used to deploying from it, getting used to riding on the (rails), getting our drivers used to driving it and operating it,” Grubbs said.